AHCI pauses heartily on during detection boot, but eventually proceeds. I've mentioned the problem before, but have since narrowed it down a bit. The problem does not occur in 2.6.17.3, but does occur in 2.6.18. The problem is still occurring both in 2.6.19-rc5 as well as 2.6.19-rc5-mm1.
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Messages surrounding the hang:
scsi2 : ahci
ata2: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
ata2.00: qc timeout (cmd 0xec)
ata2.00: failed to IDENTIFY (I/O error, err_mask=0x104)
ata2: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0x80)
ata2: port failed to respond (30 secs, Status 0x80)
ata2: COMRESET failed (device not ready)
ata2: hardreset failed, retrying in 5 secs
ata2: SATA link up 3.0 Gbps (SStatus 123 SControl 300)
ata2.00: ATA-6, max UDMA/133, 640 sectors: LBA
ata2.00: ata2: dev 0 multi count 1
ata2.00: configured for UDMA/133
I should note that on this system ata1 and ata3 both detect quickly, but they have 1.5 Gbps devices whereas ata2 has a 3.0Gbps device.